Mississippi Today

Final election results: 2023 was the closest Mississippi governor’s race since 1999

Published

6 months ago

November 22, 2023

Incumbent Gov. Tate Reeves garnered 50.9% of the vote in winning reelection on Nov. 7 — the closest Mississippi governor's race since 1999.

Reeves garnered 418,233 votes (50.9%), Democrat Brandon Presley received 391,614 (47.7%) and independent Gwendolyn Gray received 11,153 votes (1.4%), according to final county-by-county voting totals posted this week by the secretary of state's office.

Reeves beat Presley by 26,619 votes — a considerably tighter margin than the governor's race four years ago, when Reeves defeated Democrat Jim Hood by 45,028 votes to win a first term in the Governor's Mansion.

The secretary of state's office did not receive the final results from all 82 counties until this week. Counties have a certain time period after the election to count late-arriving mail-in ballots and affidavit ballots.

A Democrat has not won the governor's mansion in Mississippi since 1999, when Ronnie Musgrove prevailed with a plurality of the vote. Musgrove received 49.6% that year compared to 48.5% from Republican Mike Parker.

In 2019, Reeves won his first term as governor by defeating then-Attorney General Jim Hood 51.9% to 46.8%. While the percentage difference was closer in the 2023 election, Hood won more total votes in 2019 than Presley did this year. Hood received 414,368 votes in 2019, while Presley received 391,614 votes in 2023. In 2019, 63,911 more people voted than this year.

Presley narrowly captured three counties in 2023 that Hood did not win in 2019. Those counties were Lowndes, Grenada and Forrest. The 2023 election marked the first time since 1979 for a Democrat to win Forrest County. But Presley also lost two counties in 2023 that Hood won in 2019. Four years ago, Hood won the counties of Madison and Lafayette. Both those counties flipped to Reeves in 2023.

Those counties, along with Hood's home county of Chickasaw and Oktibbeha, are the only majority white counties to vote for the Democrat in either election.

RESULTS: Mississippi statewide election 2023

Reeves will be the first Mississippi governor elected to a second term with a smaller percentage of the total vote than he received in winning his first term. It is important to note, though, that Reeves is only the fourth governor elected to consecutive terms. Mississippi governors have only been allowed to serve two terms since the late 1980s.

Also, Reeves received a much smaller percentage of the vote than the winners of the other seven statewide offices — all Republican.

For instance, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, in winning reelection, won 490,956 votes or 60.7% of the total. The Democratic candidates for the other seven statewide posts ran lower profile and lower budget campaigns than their Republican opponents.

Presley, a four-term public service commissioner for the northern district, ran an aggressive campaign, outraising Reeves in 2023. The incumbent, though, came into the election year with a massive campaign war chest that dwarfed that of Presley.

In the first year in which a gubernatorial race could possibly have gone to a runoff, Reeves avoided that historic scenario by just 15,466 votes. Under a new state law, if no candidate for statewide office garners a majority vote, the top two vote-getters advance to a runoff.

Reeves ultimately prevailed by running up large margins on the Gulf Coast, in Presley's home area of northeast Mississippi, and in certain areas of east Mississippi.

Presley garnered 54,006 votes in Democrat-rich Hinds County compared to 13,634 for Reeves. But despite Presley's much ballyhooed get-out-the-vote effort in Hinds, Hood still garnered 2,125 more votes in Hinds in 2019 than did Presley in 2023.

Overall, the vote total in Hinds was down 4,182 in 2023 compared to 2019. It is difficult to say whether Hinds County election problems in 2023 caused fewer people to cast ballots. But Hinds had problems with long lines and with some precincts running out of ballots for extended periods of time.

Final results from other statewide races

Lieutenant governor:

Republican incumbent Delbert Hosemann: 490,956

Democrat Ryan Grover: 317,347

Attorney general

Republican incumbent Lynn Fitch: 470,270

Democrat Greta Kemp Martin: 339,948

Secretary of state

Republican incumbent Michael Watson: 481,895

Democrat Ty Pinkins: 328,067

Treasurer

Republican incumbent David McRae: 472,705

Democrat Addy Lee Green: 337,008

Auditor

Republican incumbent Shad White: 474,313

Democrat Larry Bradford: 334,418

Insurance commissioner

Republican incumbent Mike Chaney: 480,514

Democrat Bruce Burton: 329,214

Agriculture commissioner

Republican incumbent Andy Gipson: 467,901

Democrat Robert Bradford: 342,172

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

On this day in 1896

Published

21 hours ago

May 18, 2024

Staff Editor

MAY 18, 1896

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-1 in Plessy v. Ferguson that racial segregation on railroads or similar public places was constitutional, forging the “separate but equal” doctrine that remained in place until 1954.

In his dissent that would foreshadow the ruling six decades later in Brown v. Board of Education, Justice John Marshall Harlan wrote that “separate but equal” rail cars were aimed at discriminating against Black Americans.

“In the view of the Constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens,” he wrote. “Our Constitution in color-blind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. The law … takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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https://www.biloxinewsevents.com/?p=359301

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Mississippi Today

Renada Stovall, chemist and entrepreneur

Published

2 days ago

May 17, 2024

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – Vickie King – 2024-05-17 11:53:33

Renada Stovall sat on the back deck of her rural Arkansas home one evening, contemplating life when she had a life-altering epiphany…

“I gotta get out of these woods.”

She heard it as clear as lips to her ear and as deep as the trees surrounding her property. Stovall's job as a chemist had taken her all over the country. In addition to Arkansas, there were stints in Atlanta, Dallas and Reno. But she was missing home, her parents and friends. She also knew, she needed something else to do.

“I thought, what kind of business can I start for myself,” said Stovall, as she watered herbs growing in a garden behind her south Jackson home. Some of those herbs are used in her all-natural products. “I know when I lived in Reno, Nevada, where it's very hot and very dry, there really weren't products available that worked for me, my hair, and my skin suffered. I've got a chemistry degree from Spelman College. I took the plunge and decided to create products for myself.”

A variety of soaps created by Renada Stovall. Stovall is a chemist who creates all natural skin and hair care products using natural ingredients.

In 2018, Stovall's venture led to the creation of shea butter moisturizers and natural soaps. But she didn't stop there, and in December 2022, she moved home to Mississippi and got to work, expanding her product line to include body balms and butters, and shampoos infused with avocado and palm, mango butter, coconut and olive oils.

Nadabutter, which incorporates Renada's name, came to fruition.

Renada Stovall, owner of Nadabutter, selling her all-natural soaps and balms at the Clinton Main Street Market: Spring into Green, in April of this year.

Stovall sells her balms and moisturizers at what she calls, “pop-up markets,” across the state during the summer. She's available via social media and also creates products depending on what of her ingredients a customer chooses. “My turmeric and honey is really popular,” Stovall added.

“The all-natural ingredients I use are great for conditioning the skin and hair. All of my products make you feel soft and luscious. The shea butter I use comes from West Africa. It's my way of networking and supporting other women. And it's my wish that other women can be inspired to be self-sufficient in starting their own businesses.”

Soap mixture is poured into a mold to cure. Once cured, the block with be cut into bars of soap.

Renada Stovall, making cold process soap at her home.

Renada Stovall adds a vibrant gold to her soap mixture.

Tumeric soap created by Nadabutter owner, Renada Stovall.

Soap infused with honey. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

On this day in 1954

Published

2 days ago

May 17, 2024

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-05-17 07:00:00

MAY 17, 1954

Ella J. Rice talks to one of her pupils, all of them white, in a third grade classroom of Draper Elementary School in Washington, D.C., on September 13, 1954. This was the first day of non-segregated schools for teachers and students. Rice was the only Black teacher in the school. Credit: AP photo

In Brown v. Board of Education and Bolling v. Sharpe, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the “separate but equal” doctrine in Plessy v. Ferguson was unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment, which guaranteed equal treatment under the law.

The historic decision brought an end to federal tolerance of racial segregation, ruling in the case of student Linda Brown, who was denied admission to her local elementary school in Topeka, Kansas, because of the color of her skin.

In Mississippi, segregationist leaders called the day “Black Monday” and took up the charge of the just-created white Citizens' Council to preserve racial segregation at all costs.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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